underbelly » Photo Mysterieshttp://www.mdhs.org/underbelly
FROM THE DEEPEST CORNERS OF THE MARYLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY LIBRARYFri, 27 Feb 2015 21:52:36 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1Baltimore bands in the ’90s: more Joe Kohl photo mysterieshttp://www.mdhs.org/underbelly/2015/02/19/baltimore-bands-in-the-90s-more-joe-kohl-photo-mysteries/
http://www.mdhs.org/underbelly/2015/02/19/baltimore-bands-in-the-90s-more-joe-kohl-photo-mysteries/#commentsThu, 19 Feb 2015 14:42:32 +0000mdhslibrarydepthttp://www.mdhs.org/underbelly/?p=8196MdHS needs your help identifying bands, people, dates, and places from the Baltimore music scene of the late 1980s and ’90s in the photos below. Please help if you can.

I’ve been preparing to process the Joseph Kohl photograph collection for a while now. Because the collection is so modern—our third most modern by my count—it has never been a high priority since it arrived here in 2003. The challenges of processing it have ranged from procuring funding to finding the time to dive in. Processing photograph collections is only one aspect of my job. Granted it is one the most fun and rewarding. Another consideration was finding help. It’s a big collection consisting of well over a thousand prints and many more negatives and various pieces of ephemera, and due to the graphic nature of some of the shots, I couldn’t just throw this project at the next intern who happened along. One of my New Year’s resolutions was to forge ahead past the challenges as if things will just fall into place. And as luck would have it, that’s what appears to be happening.

Recently help arrived from longtime City Paper photographers Josh Sisk and Joe Giordano, who have been crucial in helping spread the word about the wonders of Kohl’s collection. Together we’re in the early stages of planning an offsite exhibit of some of Kohl’s work that might not hang easily here at the Historical Society. (Again, some of them are “dirty” pictures.) I’m counting on Joe and Josh to get the word out, which will hopefully to lead to a mature, qualified volunteer or intern to help with processing.

I am also counting on your help, dear gentle and aged reader. Based on the responses I’ve gotten on Facebook when I post samples of Kohl’s work, this should be no problem. So after you ponder a while, please tell me who this smokin’ guitarist is. And remember, if and when possible with all the photos, please include names, places, and a guess at the date.

It turns out this next shot was not a band at all, but rather a group of actors known as Impossible Industrial Action. They later became Action Theater and Joe Kohl was their company photographer from about 1994 on, according to Thomas Cole (pictured below).

Kohl’s work came to MdHS in various boxes, bags, and plastic tubs. The first step in processing it is to get it into appropriate-size protective boxes and an acid-free environment. The next step will be to identify as much of the work as possible and create a finding aid. Along the way, we will look at digitizing some of the work. If you personally knew Joe Kohl or recognize more than a couple faces above, I would like to speak with you and invite you to come view the collection. Please email any information you have about the above reference photos here: imagingservices@mdhs.org

Be sure to include names, places, dates if you know them. Thanks in advance for your help. (Joe Tropea)

]]>http://www.mdhs.org/underbelly/2015/02/19/baltimore-bands-in-the-90s-more-joe-kohl-photo-mysteries/feed/0Capturing the Movement: Before and After the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in Photographshttp://www.mdhs.org/underbelly/2014/06/30/capturing-the-movement-before-and-after-the-civil-rights-act-of-1964-in-photographs/
http://www.mdhs.org/underbelly/2014/06/30/capturing-the-movement-before-and-after-the-civil-rights-act-of-1964-in-photographs/#commentsMon, 30 Jun 2014 13:42:01 +0000mdhslibrarydepthttp://www.mdhs.org/underbelly/?p=6981

Fifty years ago this week the Civil Rights Act of 1964 voided all discriminatory laws (de jure segregation) in the public arena. It went a step further than each of its predecessors of 1866, 1871, 1875, 1957 and 1960 by outlawing racial segregation in schools, the workplace, and other public spaces. Considered the most important act in its lineage, ponder for a moment the fact that America, land of the free, required at least five more acts of congress to even begin moving toward equality for all. For those keeping score at home, there was the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and Civil Rights bills passed in 1968 (Fair Housing), 1987 (featuring an override of President Reagan’s veto), 1990 (job discrimination), and 1991 (right to trial by jury in discrimination cases).

It’s important to remember and celebrate this important legislation. But equally important is to remember the struggle that led to it, the people behind the scenes, and what came after. To commemorate this anniversary, we’ve selected photographs from three MdHS collections (Paul Henderson, Richard Childress, and Theodore McKeldin) that highlight the struggle, high and low points, and remind us of what it means to be human.

The protest of Ford’s Theatre (pictured above), which began in 1946 because it required African-Americans to sit in the balcony, lasted seven years and ultimately succeeded. Many of the popular plays during this time bypassed Baltimore because producers and actors would not abide by the theater’s segregation policy. Others, such as actor/opera singer Paul Robeson (second from left), came to Baltimore specifically to protest. The Ford’s demonstrations were led by the Jackson and Mitchell families, NAACP, and Interracial Fellowship Youth (with A. Robert Kauffman as president, possibly fifth from left) and benefited from celebrity power from the likes of Robeson and Bayard Rustin. In 1953, Governor Theodore McKeldin, who served terms as Mayor (of Baltimore) before and after he held the office of governor, received the Hollander Foundation Award for his leadership and particularly for his help in integrating Ford’s Theatre. (1)

Founded in 1912, the Baltimore Branch of the NAACP is the second oldest in the country. In response to legal segregation in education, housing, and employment, Dr. Carl Murphy, editor of the Afro-American newspaper, called a meeting with 14 community leaders in 1935 in an effort to revitalize the branch. Dr. Lillie May Carroll Jackson was one of those present. At the meeting she was elected president of the Baltimore Branch NAACP, a position she held until retiring in 1970.

“National Association for the Advancement of Colored People meeting.” Paul S. Henderson, October 1948. MdHS, HEN.00.A2-147.

One of the first major battles of the Baltimore Branch NAACP was to champion the cause of black teachers in public schools who received lesser salaries than their white counterparts. The NAACP fought for equal pay, equal facilities for learning, and equal teacher-training programs. The backdrop of this particular protest, Frederick Douglass High School, was established in 1883 as the Colored High and Training School and is the second oldest historically integrated high school in the country. Prior to desegregation, it was one of only two high schools (in Baltimore) open to black students. Parren J. Mitchell, seen here at far left, graduated from Douglass High School in 1940 and in 1970 went on to become Maryland’s first black member of Congress.

Despite being fully qualified academically, Esther McCready (below, third from left) was denied admission to the University of Maryland School of Nursing solely because of the color of her skin. Seen here with NAACP attorneys, Thurgood Marshall (fourth from left) and Donald Gaines Murray (second from right), McCready sued the university for admission based on the argument that she was not provided “equal protection under the law” (McCready v. Byrd, 1949) and was forced to pursue her education out-of-state where blacks were accepted while her white counterparts were being trained in state. On April 14, 1950, the Maryland Court of Appeals ruled in McCready’s favor. Marshall and Murray rolled McCready’s case into a series of test cases. Also pictured below are Hiram Whittle, who sought to enroll as an undergraduate in the College of Engineering, and future Congressman Parren Mitchell who sought to enter a graduate sociology program. By 1951 all had won their respective cases. (2)

In 1948, Governor William Preston Lane Jr., seated second from right, appointed nine African-Americans to the Board of Trustees for Cheltenham School for Boys after the entire board resigned. The long-troubled correctional institution for young black males was in dire straits and often criticized as a penal work farm rather than training school when the new board took over. Members of particular note were Willard W. Allen (seated far left), president of Southern Life Insurance Company and Grand Worshipful Master of the Free and Accepted Masons, and Violet Hill Whyte (seated second from left), the first black policewoman in Baltimore. By the time she retired in 1967, Whyte had reached the rank of lieutenant. (3)

“Governor Lane meeting with the Board of Cheltenham School for Boys,” Paul S. Henderson, February 1951. MdHS, HEN.00.A2-206.

Richard (Dick) Childress Photograph Collection

Baltimore Sun photographer Dick Childress finds members of Baltimore CORE smoking and chatting on a sidewalk, possibly during a demonstration. While we don’t know the exact date and most of the men are not identified in this picture, the two men in the center are Walter Samuel Brooks (left), Baltimore CORE director, and Daniel Gant (right).

WJZ-TV channel 13 was on the scene. But when and where? Stokely Carmichael, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, loosens his tie while speaking at a Baltimore CORE Convention—date unknown, but possibly the same day that Hamer spoke. In January 1967, Carmichael made appearances at Metropolitan Methodist Church and Morgan State. According to the late Sun columnist Gregory Kane, Carmichael also spoke in Baltimore in 1970. More information is needed.

Below a CORE member watches infamous white supremacist and failed gubernatorial candidate, Charles J. Luthardt protest a CORE event. The smile on his face indicates that he is familiar with this protester’s brand of idiocy. Glen Burnie resident, Luthardt often visited the neighborhoods surrounding Patterson Park in his truck equipped with loudspeakers that he used to spout hate speech and play racist records which he also sold. He was the chairman of the Fighting American Nationalists, but at these impromptu rallies his audience often consisted of Baltimore teenagers gathering around his truck. He believed the city was in the midst of a race war and in 1966 ran for Governor on a platform of issuing guns to all white citizens at the state’s expense. (4)

The reference picture below is very likely from the summer of 1967. Despite the fact that Childress failed to record either a date or location, it’s probably an accurate representation of the Patterson Park teenagers Charles Luthartd played to from his truck. Patterson Park was a hot bed of white supremacist activity, particularly in 1966 and ’67. According to author Antero Pietilla, “Nazi Swastika flags were flying on Eastern Avenue, toward Broadway from the park, where the Baltimore Nationalist Socialist Party had its headquarters.” Among other national tensions, a lifeguard strike for better pay in August 1967 closed certain city pools. But lifeguards only went on strike at pools located in black neighborhoods, leaving pools such as Riverside Park between Federal Hill and Locust Point and Roosevelt Park in Hampden open for business to its white residents. Not surprisingly black teenagers sought to assert their rights guaranteed by the ’64 Civil Rights Act.(5) They were met by crowds of hostile white teenagers who shouted racial epithets. In Hampden rabid white teens chased and trapped a group of black teens in the locker room until police arrived to free them. Here we have proof that racism is learned, even as other subjects fall by the wayside.

Persistent politician and Sydney Hollander Award winner Mayor (former Governor) Theodore McKeldin was highly regarded as an advocate for civil rights for African-Americans. It’s interesting to ponder his inner thoughts when caught in the lifeguard strike a year after the photo below was taken. Mrs. Jennie Gaines, homeowner, 515 North Carey Street (Harlem Park neighborhood) was the first person to receive a Federal Rehabilitation grant in the Mid-Atlantic region. Gaines was a 69 year-old widower who inherited her house from her mother and lived on Social Security. She used the grant to improve her home. McKeldin is seen delivering her award and holding a copy of his 1964 MdHS-published book, No Mean City. (6)

Mayor Theodore McKeldin greets A. Philip Randolph at a White House conference on Civil Rights in 1966. Randolph was a union organizer, radical publisher, and strong believer in collective activism as a means for African-Americans to gain full equality. Together with Bayard Rustin and A. J. Muste, he organized a proposed march on Washington that pressured President Roosevelt to issue Executive Order 8802 (Fair Employment Act, 1941) which banned racial discrimination in war industries. In 1948 when President Truman needed black support to win reelection, Randolph urged him to issue Executive Order 9981 that desegregated the military.

After receiving ”the treatment” from his close friend President Lyndon Baines Johnson, frequent White House visitor Whitney Young is greeted warmly by Mayor McKeldin who may have come bearing gifts according to this photo. Young is best known as the Executive Director of the National Urban League and is credited with transforming it from a relatively moderate organization to one that fought aggressively for economic opportunities for African-Americans. He also left an amazing legacy in the field of social work. (Joe Tropea and Jennifer A. Ferretti)

Two of the three collections sampled above are still works-in-progress at MdHS. While the Paul Henderson Collection has received much recent attention from volunteers, interns, staff, and the public, there is still much work to be done. Names, dates, and locations remain undetermined in many of his photographs. The same can be said of Richard Childress’s work. In many cases Childress identified his subjects, but failed to record specific dates or locations. The Special Collections and Imaging Services Departments invite the public to visit the F. Furlong Baldwin Library and view these collections. We welcome your thoughts and factual details in the comments section or email us at imagingservices[at]mdhs[dot]org.

Many thanks to Dr. Philip Merrill, Antero Pietilla, and Bill Zorzi for their help and incites on these photographs.

]]>http://www.mdhs.org/underbelly/2014/06/30/capturing-the-movement-before-and-after-the-civil-rights-act-of-1964-in-photographs/feed/2The Dream of the ‘90s is Alive: Pre-processing the Joseph Kohl Collectionhttp://www.mdhs.org/underbelly/2013/12/12/the-dream-of-the-90s-is-alive-pre-processing-the-joseph-kohl-collection/
http://www.mdhs.org/underbelly/2013/12/12/the-dream-of-the-90s-is-alive-pre-processing-the-joseph-kohl-collection/#commentsThu, 12 Dec 2013 17:17:18 +0000mdhslibrarydepthttp://www.mdhs.org/underbelly/?p=4958Whatever you do, don’t mistake the title of this post as a diss.

The photographs taken by Joseph Henry Adam Kohl (1957 – 2002), and left on deposit here at MdHS by his friend Carl Clark, capture an era in the greatest sense of that cliche. Best, too, not to take the title too literally. The truth is we don’t yet know precisely how many eras are captured in this collection because Kohl, like many working photographers over the ages, did not leave records or dates that can be easily put together or determined. The assumption is that his work spans the 1980s, ’90s, and 2000s. The list of papers he shot for is staggering. It includes but is certainly not limited to The News American, TheAfro-American, The Village Voice, Baltimore Business Journal, City Paper, Catholic Review, Easy Rider, and Recycling Times. He also shot for himself. Kohl died of leukemia in 2002 at age 44.

What Kohl did leave behind is a massive collection totaling 44 boxes of prints, Polaroids, negatives, and scattered ephemera that capture one of the widest ranges I’ve encountered in a Maryland photographer. If I had to guess, I’d compare it to the Paul Henderson Photo Collection and say there must be at least 10,000 images. The collection has sat untouched and mostly unmolested since it was left here in December 2003. There was an exhibit held at School 33 that year, but there seems to be little record of the show beyond this pamphlet:

Pamphlet from the exhibit, “Joseph Kohl photographer: a retrospective,” held at school 33 from November 1 to December 2, 2003.

I’ve been excited about Kohl’s collection since discovering it in the Thomas and Hugg storage basement as an intern back in 2006. The momentum and people power it would’ve taken to get the ball rolling on processing this collection were far beyond me, a lowly intern, back then, but I kept it tucked away as a dream project for the future. Well, the future it seems is now, or at least coming for Kohl’s collection in 2014. A few weeks ago I was contacted by Joe Giordano and Josh Sisk from the City Paper who were interested in Kohl because next year is the tenth anniversary of his passing. I don’t want to tip the hat of what they have planned, but I am confident it will be amazing.

Do you recognize these protesters? Hail Mary film protesters at the Charles Theater, January 1986. PP284, MdHS. REFERENCE PHOTO.

I would like to let everyone know that MdHS will need your help in processing this collection. See someone you know in a photograph? Drop us a line at at specialcollections@mdhs.org and tell us. We’ll also be checking with local universities for interns to help with processing.

Please enjoy the following snippets and share them with your friends. (Joe Tropea)

She really loves Barry, but who is she? What year must this be, 1970s, ’80s? Barry Manilow fan, date unknown. PP284, MdHS. REFERENCE PHOTO.

H.L. Mencken(1880-1956) and his fellow journalist at the Baltimore Sun, Robert Preston Harriss(1902-1989) in a 1949 photograph taken by photographer John T. “Jack” Engeman at Mencken’s home. R.P. Harriss began his career as Mencken’s assistant in the 1920s and remained with the Sun for the next six decades. (Henry Louis Mencken and Robert Preston Harriss, 1949, Jack Engeman, Slide Collection – slide_engeman-00, MdHS.)

(Editor’s note, 10/21/2013 – Thanks to the kind assistance of one of the best sources on all things Mencken, Mr. Vincent Fitzpatrick, Curator of the Mencken Room at the Enoch Pratt Library, the mystery of the Mencken photographs has been solved. (Captions for the photographs reflect the updates.)

According to Mr. Fitzpatrick, the photograph of Mencken and Robert Preston Harris was taken at Mencken’s home at 1524 Hollins Street. The two Baltimore Sun reporters are sitting at the northwest wall of Mencken’s parlor.

The remaining color photographs were all taken on October 26, 1949 at a ceremony for the laying of the cornerstone for the new BaltimoreSunBuilding on North Calvert Street. The Mencken Room is in possession of the renowned journalist’s personal ledgers, which contain black and white photographs of the same event taken by another photographer. Mencken identified the event and many of the people in the in his neat, compact writing. Attendees included Governor William Preston Lane, Baltimore Mayor Thomas D’Alessandro, architect Edward L. Palmer, John E. Semmes, a director of the Sunpapers, Paul Patterson, Sunpapers president from 1919-1951, his wife, and other Sun employees.

Sixty-eight years ago today, Baltimore journalist Henry Louis Mencken turned 65. In his diary entry for that day, he took the opportunity to ruminate on his life up that point:

“My sixty-fifth birthday, and I am, as usual, in the midst of severe hay-fever. I began taking vaccines from Dr. Leslie N. Gay last Winter, but they have failed completely, and I have been very uncomfortable. Nevertheless, I have managed to keep at my desk, and my record of my magazine days has made some progress since I resumed it in the early Summer…

When I was 40 I had no expectation whatever of reaching 65, and in fact assumed as a matter of course that I’d be dead by then. My father died at 44 and my grandfather Mencken at 63. Perhaps I have lasted so long because my health has always been shaky: my constant aches and malaises have forced me to give some heed to my carcass. To be sure, I have always worked too hard, and taken too little exercise; moreover, I have eaten too much and maybe also drunk too much; but on the whole I have been careful. If I live long enough I hope to add an appendix to my magazine chronicle giving my medical history…

I often wonder, looking back over my years, whether I have got out of myself all that was there. In all probability I have. I got a bad start and have vacillated more than once between two careers… Meanwhile I am getting my records in order, and even if I die tomorrow they will be in pretty fair shape. There is, indeed, probably no trace in history of a writer who left more careful accounts of himself and his contemporaries. I have tried hard to tell the truth. At bottom, this is probably subjectively impossible, but I have at least made the effort.”(1)

Mencken did indeed leave a careful account of himself, bestowing to posterity his vast array of professional writings, along with his beloved home, a diary, his personal collection of books, and a wealth of correspondence. Being one of the most celebrated journalists of his time, he also left his familiar visage well documented on film. And while there are hundreds of black and white photographs of Mencken, there may only be a handful of color images of the famed Baltimorean.

H.L. Mencken and unidentified men at a ceremony for the laying of the cornerstone for the new Baltimore Sun Building on North Calvert Street on October 26, 1949.(Henry Louis Mencken and unidentified men at a ceremony for the laying of the cornerstone for the new Baltimore Sun Building on North Calvert Street, October 26, 1949, John T. “Jack” Engeman, slide collection, slide_engeman-0004, MdHS.)

In early August, while examining a partially inventoried collection of over 1000 slides that had been sitting long untouched in the photograph storage room, the library staff came across the color 35mm transparencies of H.L. Mencken featured here. There is scant information available on the collection other than that most of the images were snapped by John T. “Jack” Engeman (1900-1984) a Baltimore photographer who was known for his photographs of the architecture and cultural life of the city. Other than that, most of the slides have very little additional identification, organized very basically by subject. Of the eight photographs of Mencken found, only the image of R.P. Harriss and Mencken above is identified. The remaining slides are simply organized under the heading “Mencken.” The fact that some of the photos are extremely blurry does not help in the identification process either.

We have a theory of where and when these photos were taken, and who some of the people in them are, but we’d like to poll our readership. If anyone has any insights on the photos, please add your ideas to the Comments section at the bottom of the post. In the meantime, just enjoy some rarely seen photographs – both in color and black and white – of the Sage of Baltimore. (Damon Talbot)

Click on the slideshow below to see more color images of Mencken taken by Jack Engeman as well as some rarely seen black and white images of him from the Maryland Historical Society’s collection.(scroll over the image for captions)

Aside from the anniversary of Mencken’s birthday, the editors of underbelly have another reason to celebrate – tomorrow is the one year anniversary of this blog. On September 13 of last year our first post appeared, Maryland on Film@mdhs, promoting an event on October 13 exhibiting eight silent films from our collection. Since then we’ve been posting new content every Thursday, from tales of cockfighting in Baltimore County to the history of Hampden’s plumbing. Thanks to all of the readers of the blog for tuning in.

Obituary, “R.P. Harriss, Journalist, 87,” The New York Times, September 29, 1989.

]]>http://www.mdhs.org/underbelly/2013/09/12/happy-birthday-henry-a-mencken-mystery/feed/2Then and Now: The Owl Barhttp://www.mdhs.org/underbelly/2013/08/22/then-and-now-the-owl-bar/
http://www.mdhs.org/underbelly/2013/08/22/then-and-now-the-owl-bar/#commentsThu, 22 Aug 2013 15:32:28 +0000mdhslibrarydepthttp://www.mdhs.org/underbelly/?p=3537The Owl Bar has long been a favorite after-work drinking spot for MdHS staffers. A decent beer selection, cheap happy hour specials, and some of the best brick oven pizza in town are only part of the draw though. The bar, tucked in the back of the Belvedere Hotel, has a certain ambience to which few others can compare. It’s subtly classy and charming. Maybe it’s the dark-stained bar and exposed brick that Baltimoreans gravitate toward. Maybe it’s the gauntlet of celebrity 8x10s that you pass through at the entrance. Here you’ll find Clark Gable sharing a wall with Mary Pickford, Warren Harding, and Andre Braugher. And you don’t doubt for a minute that they’ve all thrown back a few at the bar. It feels like history, well, because it is history. Six photos we’ve long admired in our Subject Vertical File have the ability to take anyone who’s frequented the bar back in time. So, let’s go. Back. In. Time.

The hotel was named after a mansion built by General John Eager Howard during the Revolutionary Period. Located at Calvert Street between Eager and Chase, it took its name from the great view of the river and the bay. The name itself comes from the Italian words for “beautiful sight.” It’s hard to imagine now what that must have looked like. The hotel, which sits west of the spot where the mansion stood until 1886, was completed in 1903 and cost $1.7 million. The bar opened on December 14, 1903. It was then known simply as the bar room or bar at the Belvedere and would not take the name Owl Bar until after World War II.

Despite still being chock full of dead animal heads, the bar is as cozy and charming as ever. The Owl Bar today. Photo taken from Truffles Catering web site.

Originally a men’s only establishment, the clientele ranged from high society gentlemen to workaday businessmen with some New York bookmakers peppered in. Barroom brawls were frequent and sometimes reported in the pages of The Sun. No one knows exactly when the owl theme or name set in, but legend has it that during the Prohibition Era the bar was a speakeasy where two prominently displayed ornamental owls served to tip off patrons. An eye blinked on each owl when liquor was available and the coast was clear of feds. One of the owls still sits on the bar today.

Imagine Robert Mitchum waiting to have a little talk with you in the barroom. He’s not happy that you’ve kept him waiting. Baltimore Hotels Belvedere Hotel Chase at Charles Street Bar, SVF, MdHS.

The photo above shows a room that has since been altered. Today the right side serves as a small dining room, while the left side has been walled in and made part of the kitchen. Notice the cigar counter at the back of the room. It’s since been replaced by a four-top table.

The entrance room of the bar as it appears today.

It’s hard to say if this was the bar’s entrance when this photo was taken in the early 20th century. But take a look at the cigar counter. Baltimore Hotels Belvedere Hotel Chase at Charles Street Barroom Detail, SVF, MdHS.

The dates on MdHS’s Vertical File photos are somewhat dubious. A couple of them are labeled 1934, yet could very well have been taken earlier. In Kristen Helberg’s book, The Belvedere and the Man Who Saved It, which is so far the definitive history of the hotel, the MdHS photo below on the left is labeled “The Bar Room, 1908.” We can find no clues in our records that explain how she determined the year.

Here are some details of the old bar that may provide date clues, but will certainly leave you pining for the way things once looked. If there are any experts skilled at dating cash registers from black & white photographs, please contact MdHS.

Kristen Helberg, The Belvedere and the Man Who Saved It, Pumpkin Publications, 1986.

Fred Rasmussen, “Here’s a Toast to the Great Hotel Bars,” The Baltimore Sun, March 26, 2005.

]]>http://www.mdhs.org/underbelly/2013/08/22/then-and-now-the-owl-bar/feed/4Sunday Best: a volunteer reflects on photo crowdsourcinghttp://www.mdhs.org/underbelly/2013/06/13/sunday-best-a-volunteer-reflects-on-photo-crowdsourcing/
http://www.mdhs.org/underbelly/2013/06/13/sunday-best-a-volunteer-reflects-on-photo-crowdsourcing/#commentsThu, 13 Jun 2013 15:34:19 +0000mdhslibrarydepthttp://www.mdhs.org/underbelly/?p=2827Last week the Maryland Historical Society opened a satellite photograph exhibit, “Paul Henderson: Maryland’s Civil Rights Era in Photographs,” at Baltimore’s City Hall. The show marks our latest efforts to identify the people and locations in the Henderson Photograph Collection. Earlier this year, MdHS hosted an event to kickstart this process. The following is a reflection piece written by a volunteer who worked the event.

On Sunday April 7, 2013, more than 120 long-time Baltimore residents, many dressed in their Sunday best, filled the auditorium of the Maryland Historical Society to help rediscover Baltimore’s African-American history. The event, Revisiting Our Past: Identifying Paul Henderson’s Photographs of the African-American Community in Maryland, ca. 1935-1965, was co-hosted by MdHS and the Pierians Baltimore Chapter. The two groups collaborated to identify the scores of unnamed people and events in photographs taken by Paul Henderson who worked for the Baltimore Afro-American. I was lucky enough to be there as a volunteer.

Attendee Anne C. Taylor identified A. Jack Thomas who was the director of the music department at Morgan College. He was reportedly one of the first African-American bandleaders in the Army and the first to conduct the BSO. HEN.08.06-034, Paul Henderson, MdHS.

Members of the Pierians, an organization “dedicated to the purpose of promoting and encouraging the study and enjoyment of the fine arts,” took the lead in the preservation of their community’s history. Last summer, they approached Jennifer Ferretti, former curator of photographs at MdHS, who had curated an exhibition of Henderson’s Civil Rights Era photographs and in doing so, drew much deserved attention to the collection. The Pierians told Ferretti they were sure they could identify people and places in the photos. The photographs had long languished at MdHS and their previous home in the Baltimore City Life Museum. But even before the Pierians’ offer, Ferretti had invested significant time into organizing, printing, and compiling the 6,000 negatives and prints so they could be presented to the community in an accessible manner. The project was well worth it. Scores of volunteers, staff members, and community members turned out to put names to faces and stories to still images, investing the photographs with deeper meaning.

Though the exact number of identifications has not been calculated, the number of people, places, and events that were recognized is upwards of a few dozen. Participants found and identified a host of lesser known faces alongside the more famous entertainers, politicians, and civil rights activists that Henderson captured with his camera. Concise descriptions abound: “Graduation class from Apex Beauty School,” “Thurgood Marshall,” “A. Jack Thomas, First African Amer. Conductor of Baltimore Symphony Orch.,” “Dr. Frederick Dedmond, Language Professor at Morgan State,” “Mrs. Ada K. Jenkins—My former Piano teacher.” The experience was exhilarating for participants as they found photographs of themselves, their loved ones, and role models from decades ago. Most were seeing the photographs for the first time in a long while; many for the first time ever. Yvonne Lansey let out a joyous cry when she found herself and her sister in a photograph of their class at the Garnett School #103. In the photo, taken on Halloween, the two girls were dressed in costumes made by their mother.

A Halloween costume party at the Garnett School #103 as identified by Yvonne Lansey. HEN.00.A2.221, Paul Henderson, MdHS.

Participants also identified (and described) places that held memories and meaning for the community as a whole, including The Little School, “a private school for African-American children in West Baltimore,” and many now closed businesses on Pennsylvania Avenue. They also named sites we might prefer to forget, like the Druid Hill Park Black Tennis Courts and the Black Swimming Pool.

The value of this research is profound, for historians as well as for community members. Participants shared personal anecdotes about the photos that will provide researchers with otherwise hard-to-get historical insight. For example, some informants could list the present-day names of institutions alongside their historical names. Further, personal anecdotes are rare in official historical archives, but they provide a sense of community attachment that cannot easily be identified in images or formal documents. On one identification form, Betty Williams identified the members of a wedding party and noted, “I was her only bridesmaid.” Finally, and perhaps more importantly, community participation empowers historical communities to participate in the process interpreting their own past.

Professor Frederick Dedmond was identified by attendees of the April 7 event as well as his former students who saw this photo at City Hall. HEN.03.02-053, Paul Henderson, MdHS.

The visual record is important, but often overlooked by historians of the twentieth-century. Having photographs to accompany written documents can bring readers closer to the topic at hand. But even more importantly, as some scholars have noted, the visual record also carries the potential to revise established histories in significant ways. Activist and scholar Kathleen Neal Cleaver wrote about the Civil Rights Movement:

“The visual record always documents the presence of women, but in the printed record, texts of academic accounts women’s participation tends to fade.”

Henderson’s photographic documentation of the world-famous as well as the unknown suggests that he was attuned to the importance of the visual record for capturing multiple stories. For social movement histories as well as for cultural, community, and political histories, visual records tell an important story that can corroborate written histories, but also tell new stories. Thanks to the dedication of MdHS employees and volunteers, and the experiences, memories, and interest of those who have taken part (and will continue to take part) in the identification of Henderson’s photos, we can look forward to a future filled with new stories about Baltimore’s past. (Amy Zanoni)

Amy Zanoni completed an MA in History from UMBC in May 2013. Her MA thesis, a place-based history of Baltimore’s second-wave feminist movement, investigated the ideas and political activism of feminists and other social movement actors in Baltimore in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Amy will continue her historical research as she pursues a PhD at Rutgers University starting in the fall of 2013.

Can you help identify these young men? “Two Unknown Young Men,” MdHS, HEN.08.01-004.

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks here in the Imaging Services Department at MdHS. Through some wild confluence of ambition and scheduling, I agreed to curate and deliver a 48-piece photography exhibition the very week of the debut of my new documentary, HIT & STAY, at the Maryland Film Festival. I can’t really tell you what I was thinking, but I can say that after a week’s extension from the nice folks at City Hall, I live to say all’s well that ends well.

Honor bright. This negative is dated 1959, but the cars in the background seem to tell a different story. “Boyscout,” ca. 1959, MdHS, HEN.00.B2-221.

This week I couldn’t think of anything more important to write about than our new exhibit opening at Baltimore City Hall next week on June 5. Paul Henderson: Maryland’s Civil Rights Era in Photographs, ca. 1940-1960 is actually part two of work begun by my predecessor, former Digital Projects Coordinator & Curator of Photographs Jennifer Ferretti. Jenny opened the first Henderson exhibit at MdHS to much fanfare and acclaim in February 2012.

Since then the library has been working hard identifying the Paul Henderson Photograph Collection. Our event on April 7 earlier this year was a great success in bringing out the community, raising awareness about the collection, and identifying people and places in Henderson’s photos. To that end, our new exhibit at City Hall, which is also the first stop on the traveling Paul Henderson Photo Collection exhibit, seeks to carry on the task of identification. Most of the prints containing unknown people and places have QR codes printed on the labels that will take smartphone users to an online survey where they can type in names and other information. Identification forms will also be available in the rotunda at City Hall near the prints.

There are many more photos like this in the Paul Henderson Collection. MdHS hopes to one day identify all subjects in the collection. “Two Unknown Young Women,” MdHS, HEN.01.12-020.

Please enjoy this sneak peak of the exhibit and remember to check it out the next time you visit City Hall. If you can identify any of the people in the three photos above, please fill out an online survey by clicking here. (Joe Tropea)

This exhibit is scheduled to run throughout the month of June. For a look at more images from the exhibition please visit our Paul Henderson Photo blog.

]]>http://www.mdhs.org/underbelly/2013/05/23/everyday-people-paul-henderson-collection-goes-to-city-hall/feed/2Paul Henderson Collection: Who or Where?http://www.mdhs.org/underbelly/2013/02/28/paul-henderson-collection-who-or-where/
http://www.mdhs.org/underbelly/2013/02/28/paul-henderson-collection-who-or-where/#commentsThu, 28 Feb 2013 15:58:40 +0000mdhslibraryhttp://mdhslibrary.wordpress.com/?p=1825The Paul Henderson Photograph Collection contains over 6,000 photographs of mostly unidentified African Americans from ca. 1935-1965. When the Paul Henderson: Baltimore’s Civil Rights Era in Photographs, ca. 1940-1960exhibition opened in 2012, several people from the media asked why it was important for MdHS to identify the people Henderson photographed in and around Baltimore. If you’ve ever looked through a family album and asked yourself, Who is that with so and so? or thought, I wish this person was around to ask who or where this was taken, you can sympathize with an archive’s desire to identify people and places in a historical record like a photograph. Library professionals have an obligation to the materials housed in their repository and to tell their stories to the fullest degree possible. Though most librarians are quite knowledgeable about the collections they serve, it is nearly impossible to be an expert on all the wide ranging topics covered in their holdings. For this reason librarians often function as facilitators, bringing their collections to the communities they document.

To start the process of collecting names of people and places, underbelly will feature some of Henderson’s photos and we invite you to look, share, and comment. For this edition of the Henderson Who or Where? series, we present two curious photographs that were shot in September and October of 1948.* They were labeled “Group of ladies” and “Taking a picture.” Looking closely at the two photographs, you can see a wide range of ethnic backgrounds and almost everyone who is pictured is female. Click to enlarge the photographs.

If you think you know who is featured in the photographs or where the photographs were taken, please respond via the Henderson Collection Survey. If you have questions, please feel free to email jferretti@mdhs.org. To view more of Henderson’s work (including many more unidentified photos), learn about the exhibition, and to view Henderson videos, please visit the Paul Henderson Photographs Blog. All 6,000+ of Henderson’s negatives as available as public reference photographs through the MdHS Library. Please email specialcollections@mdhs.org for more information. (Jennifer A. Ferretti)

Jennifer A. Ferretti is a MLIS candidate at Pratt Institute in New York City. She is the former Curator of Photographs & Digitization Coordinator at MdHS and curated the Paul Henderson exhibition which is ongoing. She continues to volunteer for MdHS and maintains the Paul Henderson Photographs Blog. Follow her on Twitter @CityThatReads.

Last week we reached out for help understanding a photograph, and wow, did we get it. Our photo from the Hughes Company collection traveled far and wide. The image, known then as “Detective room, Police Department,” was not only a headscratcher, but also a Rorschach Test of sorts. Different eyes saw different things happening. Speculations, observations, and facts, sent via e-mail and comments, ranged from thinking it was initiation ritual to a theatrical production still. The majority who weighed in felt that what’s depictied is a police line-up. Within less than two day’s time enough evidence mounted to reasonably argue that it is a police line-up. Whether or not it was staged or the real thing is one of the few questions left unanswered.

We now know to call this photo “‘The White Masks’ Inspecting a Prisoner at Detectives Headquarters.” The first info to arrive came from Bill Zorzi, a former Baltimore Sun editor and writer/producer/actor of The Wire. In an early afternoon e-mail to this writer he wrote:

“At first I thought it looked as if it might be a courtroom—which they used to have in the old police station houses—given the paneling and the brass bar. Then I counted the masked men, which totaled 15—too big for a jury (even with alternates) and too small for a grand jury. Then I thought, hmmm, I bet this is the forerunner of the ol’ police lineup… before 2-way mirrors…”

Zorzi followed his e-mail with another containing ten articles from The Sun. But before his second transmission arrived, commenter Bill Lefurgy, archivist/digital preservationist at the Library of Congress, quoted a Sun entry titled “Sleuths Have Mask System: First Prisoner Subject to Ordeal Turns Pale,” from July 29, 1908:

“…the Baltimore Detective Department initiated a ‘mask system’ that ‘enables detectives to examine crooks without being recognized.’ The description is of masks ‘of the ordinary white dominoes with white muslin covering the lower part of the face,’ worn by 20 detectives; the detective captain is described as unmasked….”

The article details how a young pickpocket, Hymen Movitz (18 years old) faced 20 masked detectives, turned pale, and clutched at the brass rail in our photo. Now we know when the practice was first implemented in Baltimore. Our photograph was taken after July 1908.

Several articles in the historic Baltimore Sun (accessible for free via ProQuest if you have a Pratt Library account) detail the story behind our photo. The paper has since posted some images of these articles on their DarkRoom blog. Sherlock Swann, whose collected papers are available at the MdHS Special Collections Department, was appointed president of the Police Board in 1908. Well known and highly regarded for his tenure as the Burnt District Commissioner after the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904, Swann is apparently the first head of police to actually put serious effort into the job.

In March 1908, Swann traveled to New York City to school himself on the operations of a big city police department. One of the many practices he brought back with him was a ritual known as the “facing of the masks.” This practice was developed by Inspector Byrnes of New York in the mid-1880s. It was presumably a preventative measure. Masks were employed on the speculation that some career-minded criminals might have themselves arrested simply to learn the faces of detectives, thus adding to their skills and value.

In what seems a rather intimidating practice, police would parade detainees about to be released due to lack of evidence before detectives wearing the white masks seen above. It was all part of the daily morning routine. In New York the practice was done on a much larger scale involving up to 100 detectives. Officially, the line-up was held so that detectives could learn the features and mannerisms of individuals who would surely be passing through their doors again and again. However, one can’t help but speculate this was as much as a shaming/intimidating ritual as a useful law enforcement practice, especially considering that a photography department existed even at Baltimore’s small Bertillon Bureau. Each arrestee had already had his picture taken for the “Rogue’s Gallery.”

By 1911, the NYPD had abandoned the masked line-up for being time consuming and wasteful of the detectives’ time.* These factors didn’t stop the Baltimore police from using it for many years.

History of the Baltimore Police Department, 1774-1909 by Clinton McCabe, Pratt Library, Md. XHV8148.B21M2 (below), an earlier edition held at MdHS (above).

The most definitive piece of evidence we received was sent in by Jeff Korman of the Maryland Department at the Enoch Pratt Library. He identified the photo from a book in the Pratt’s collection, History of the Baltimore Police Department, 1774-1909 by Clinton McCabe. The photo, Korman said, appeared on page xvii. This came as quite a surprise to me, as the MdHS library has an earlier edition of the book without the photo. (HBPD 1774-1907)

The following day I went to the Pratt and met with Korman. He showed me the five different editions from their holdings, earlier ones like ours without the photo and later editions with the detectives faces obscured by a gilt stamp to protect their identities. We are now able to identify two of the three unmasked men. The moustached man on the far left is Detective Joseph E. Coughlan. Two spaces down and slightly turned to his left is Sergeant, Detective Harry P. Schanberger. They’re probably not wearing masks because they were the brass of the department and did not have to do undercover work.

All the information above dates our picture between 1908-09. It’s the only photo of its kind in our Hughes Collection. We may never know the identity of the African-American man on the riser. We may never know if he was arrested or if this was a staged demonstration for a photographer. But we have heard from enough voices who agree that this image is at once disturbing, perplexing, and stunning. It speaks volumes about our recent past.

MdHS would like to thank everyone who shared the photo, sent comments, clues, and criticisms, and enjoyed helping. (Joe Tropea)

*A New York Times piece from Feb. 9, 1914, “Police Line-up Is Resumed Today” details the discontinuation of the practice before it was reinstated in a modified form—less detectives—some three years later.

What do you think is going on in this photograph? “Detective room, Police Department,” Hughes Company Photograph Collection, unknown photographer (possibly James W. Scott), ca.1910, MdHS, PP8-585 / Z9.584.PP8

Last month we solved a longstanding photograph mystery that we never expected to solve, that is until we rolled up our sleeves and actually tried. Modern digitization technology, more precisely the ability to zoom deep into a photo or negative to see details previously unavailable to the naked eye, coupled with searchable newspaper databases make solving these puzzles much easier today. But this time out, we have a longstanding photo mystery that we can’t solve on our own. Having exhausted every resource we could muster, from searching historic newspaper databases to asking historians and journalists (we even tried asking federal archival investigators who visited us during the Landau theft case), we still can’t say with any degree of certainty what’s going on in the disturbing photo above. Yet its imagery evokes such strong feelings, conjuring up images of Jim Crow, the Klan, and lynching, we can’t give up trying to understand it—so we turn to crowd sourcing.

Why are some of these men not wearing masks? Is that a telephone between the shoulders of the two men in the middle? Would there have been a telephone in a court room?

Immediately several questions come to mind: What is happening to this man? Why are the men wearing masks? Are they police officers? Are they a jury? Stare a little longer and other questions arise: What year would this be? Why are two of the men seen above not wearing masks? Why does the African-American man seem so calm?

Not a drop of sweat. Despite what’s going on behind him, this man does not appear worried. How do you interpret his expression?

Here’s what we do know

This photo is labeled “Detective room, Police Department.” However, in the archival world, you quickly learn not to take random descriptions as gospel. It’s part of the Hughes Collection*, one of our largest collections of photographs. James F. Hughes, whose first appearance as a commercial photographer in the City Directory was in 1877, founded the company. He owned the company until his widow sold it to an employee, James W. Scott, in 1903. The Hughes Company primarily did work for Baltimore area businesses, corporations, governmental agencies, and occasionally private individuals.

MdHS’s records indicate that this photo was taken sometime around 1910. Several pieces of evidence corroborate this date. From the lighting fixtures to the suits and hats the men are wearing, this appears to be the early twentieth century, pre-WWI. Additionally, the original medium for the image is an 8 x 10 inch glass plate negative. Glass negatives preceded film negatives. They first appeared in the mid-nineteenth century, but went the way of the dinosaur in the early twentieth century as less fragile celluloid film was introduced. The one item that could answer the “when” question is just a bit too out of focus to help: a newspaper left on a table and opened to an advertisement page:

The date is not visible on this newspaper in the foreground, but we can see that Joel Gutman & Co., which operated from 1852 to 1929, offered mens shoes from $2.79 – $4. These seem to be pre-1920s prices.

Given the approximate date of the photograph, we can safely assume that James Scott, or someone who worked for him after he took over the Hughes Company, took the picture. We know that the company commonly did work for the City of Baltimore. What we don’t know is why a Hughes photographer was at this location on this particular day. There’s also the matter that this room looks far more like a courtroom than a police detective room. Was the photographer there to take promotional pictures for the police department or court system? The shot seems somewhat staged, as if the men were assembled quickly for the shot. Note that three of them are not wearing masks, two on the left and one on the right in a doorway. Anonymity was not crucial for all of the men in the picture. There are fifteen men wearing the very distinctive masks. Could this be a jury with three alternates? Are they witnesses? A staged demonstration might also explain the calm look of the man on the riser. It’s also worth noting that he’s a fairly handsome man and zooming in closeup reveals no sweat on his brow. Additionally he appears to be wearing a wedding ring. What does any of this mean?

One final clue to point out: If this is a detective room or a court room, how do we explain the object behind the head of the man to the right of the man on the riser? What little we can read of it says, WM. J. C. DULANY CO. PUBLISHERS. Is it a calendar or broadside? The photo vexes us at every turn.

Another clue? This is an interesting place to hang a calendar or broadside in a police department or court room. And aren’t these masks peculiar?

Educated guesses

One prominent local historian** suggested that this image represents an initiation ritual for the first black detective of the Baltimore City police force. This seemed a reasonable guess, except that the date range of the collection is 1910-1926. Considering that glass negatives were not used much after the nineteen-teens and that we had never heard of an African-American detective in segregated Baltimore this early, we were left wondering.

The theory was quickly taken down by a veteran journalist who visits the library frequently. “There were no black officers on the force until 1937. Violet Hill Whyte was the first one,” said our source. ”African-Americans weren’t even put into uniform until 1943,” he added. The first African-American men hired by the Baltimore Police arrived in 1938. They were Walter T. Eubanks Jr., Harry S. Scott, Milton Gardner, and J. Hiram Butler Jr. These men were not allowed to wear police uniforms for another five years. Even if this were a photo from as late as 1926, which is highly unlikely, it predates the arrival of African-Americans on the force by twelve years.

Left with more questions than answers, we turn to you, our readers. What do you think?

* There are two sections of the Hughes Collection. The first section, known as PP8, covers dates ca. 1910-1926. This section of the collection consists mainly of vintage glass plate negatives with some vintage prints and film negatives. The second section of the Hughes Collection, called the Hughes Studio Photograph Collection, is known as PP30, and covers dates ca. 1940-1956.

** The names of those who took guesses on the photo prior to this writing have been kept anonymous.